I had good intentions of spending much of the evening on EME, especially
after the terrestrial activity fades out around 9 o'clock here in the
east. i knew EME condx would be great and I wrote up a neat e mail
with a schedule so single yagi stations could listen in as the moon
rose. we were having very high winds and unfortunately the power went
out along with internet, and I could not send my message out.. We were
without power all day. power came back around sunset, but the internet
was still out. There was no way I could operate EME as i had no internet
connection on the hill shack location. I run a 5 gHz link up there from
the house. It is under 1/2 mile and works well, but with no internet, i
was dead in the water. so I got on and made a few contacts on cw and
SSB. In talking to WA2LTM, I recounted the loss of the correct time, so
he counted down to the top of the minute, and I saw that my little
computer was still within a second. I tried FT8 and wored a few
stations, so i took a chance and pointed at the moon to see if I might
find someone to work. With no internet, I went to a few typical
frequencies and looked for any decode. that took awhile, but i did find
w6tCP calling cQ and answered him. W7JW was also on freq calling so I
worked Jeff W7JW after he finished with W6TCP. I looked around a bit
but saw no others CQing on a few popular freqs, so I went and looked for
terrestrial contacts again on the horizon. The band was empty, so I
figured it was time to pack it in. i jumped in the truck and bounced
down the hill only to find that the internet had just come on a few
minutes after I turned off the rig. aaarrggghhh!
I am hoping to be on tonight as the moon rises over the US, but more
high winds are predicted for later tonight. My Moon rise is at 21:30
UT. MR in Chicago is about 22:35 UT. I am not sure how long i can
continue if we lose power again. I am also hoping to be on this weekend
for the EME contest. I'll be on the HB9Q 222 MHz Chat.
73
Dave K1WHS
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